I love saying “expandalone”. Say it out loud. Sometimes those cute little terms that spring up can be nauseating, but expandalone is the best. EXPANDALONE! Creative Assembly have announced an EXPANDALONE for Total War: Shogun 2, called Fall Of The Samurai.

Out in March, sez Eurogamer, the poor old Samurais are falling in the face of industry. Those darned Brits, Americans and Frenchies have only gone and figured out what beats swords. It’s Gatling guns.

You’ve six new factions, I’m reliably informed, one of which is called Satsuma, and that is FUNNY. Your campaigns can now extend further North, with new technology trees, and apparently railways and naval bombardments. I’m just copying at this point. There are new boats. Oh, just read the EG article for all the rest. And then watch the trailer here!

When they announced Shogun 2, I said aloud that I hope they do a Satsuma Rebellion/Boshin War expansion. And now they have so YAY! Definitely going to buy this. Presumably, if it’s expandalone, I can own it without needing Shogun 2?

Yeah I really like having the expansions as a pre and post script to the game itself. As far as where Total War goes next I’d be interested in any or all of the following:

Rome 2
Medieval 3
(I think that Rome and Medieval 2 are the high points of the series.)

There are a number of new eras/areas that could be explored but I think it is hard to pick ones that would be entirely fresh. I think there are two other areas I’d like to see:

Licensed games; I’m sure it’d be a nightmare to set up the rights but who wouldn’t buy Total War: Lord of the Rings or Total War: Game of Thrones?

One-offs; I’d love see see smaller titles that focused on one area/war. The map would be much smaller than typical in these games with less content and a lower price point. I could see myself buying a yearly release if they were along the lines of:
Total War: War of the Roses
Total War: Austrian Succession
Total War: The Civil War

Having these come out once a year at $30-40 would be pretty sweet and then every 3-4 years they could do a big project with engine updates and the like.

It’s not the most exciting or original thought, but I think we’re ready for Rome 2.

Either that or an Ancient World Total War – I’m thinking of the ancient epic battles that blur with mythology like the greek wars with Troy and Persia.

I really feel they should stay as far away from gunpowder based battle as possible, it just doesn’t work as well in the the Total War games for my money. Hence why this expansion doesn’t excite me as much as others.

Nice, the Satsuma Rebellion: Japan had freshly signed the Alliance with the United Kingdom at this point. So I guess Britain, America and France will have a role in this expansion. This is the most modern Total War to date (very late 19th Century), so we are approaching the First World War fast! I think they will have to start go backwards now, this kind of technology is past the point of the playability for the game.

Still, I will be getting this expansion for my favourite PC Game series…

I’d like to know of a great big RTS other than World in Conflict that was along the lines of the book Red Storm Rising. You know, endless columns of T-72s rolling across the East Berlin border, A-10s lighting them up like the 4th of July, SA-2s and ZU-23 tracer fire streaking across the night sky, that sort of thing.

Interesting, certainly nowhere near the level of historical accuracy of the base game, people are right and it should feature Tom Cruise as a playable general, while the movie a great movie on it’s own, did poorly to depict Japan’s passage into the 20th century.

Along that line, there is no reason to complain about the use of firearms on this or the base game, the samurai were using arquebuses way before the satsuma rebellion, in fact, the satsuma rebels where using the same weapons as the meiji government.

With that said, if they ever move into the post WWI era they’d have to make substantial changes to the mechanics of the game.

They could probably use the same mechanics that they use in this Expansion for a WW1 game, but it would have to be set before the more well known Trench Warfare (It would also have to start in about 1890 around the Boer War period otherwise the game would only be 2 years in leghth before the Trench Warfare starts.)

Then again that idea still sounds boring for me, but I also found Empire and Napoleon boring, because I prefer Total War games with either no guns, or just as much as Medieval 2 or basegame Shogun 2